He instantly took the pipe from his mouth, and made some slouching attempt at touching his cap.
"Thank ye, miss. Thank ye kindly"—and away the barrow went, with the small boy manfully pushing behind.
The tall, black-eyed Hungarian girl and her rosy-cheeked attendant now turned into the Park. There were a good many people riding by—fathers with their daughters, elderly gentlemen very correctly dressed, smart young men with a little tawny mustache, clear blue eyes, and square shoulders.
"Many of those Englishmen are very handsome," said the young mistress, by chance.
"Not like the Austrians, Fraulein," said Anneli.
"The Austrians? What do you know about the Austrians?" said the other, sharply.
"When my uncle was ill at Prague, Fraulein," the girl said, "my mother took me there to see him. We used to go out to the river, and go half-way over the tall bridge, and then down to the 'Sofien-Insel.' Ah, the beautiful place!—with the music, and the walks under the trees; and there we used to see the Austrian officers. These were handsome, with there beautiful uniforms, and waists like a girl; and the beautiful gloves they wore, too!—even when they were smoking cigarettes."
Natalie Lind was apparently thinking of other things. She neither rebuked nor approved Anneli's speech; though it was hard that the little Saxon maid should have preferred to the sturdy, white-haired, fair-skinned warriors of her native land the elegant young gentlemen of Francis Joseph's army.
"They are handsome, those Englishmen," Natalie Lind was saying, almost to herself, "and very rich and brave; but they have no sympathy. All their fighting for their liberty is over and gone; they cannot believe there is any oppression now anywhere; and they think that those who wish to help the sufferers of the world are only discontented and fanatic—a trouble—an annoyance. And they are hard with the poor people and the weak; they think it is wrong—that you have done wrong—if you are not well off and strong like themselves. I wonder if that was really an English lady who wrote the 'Cry of the Children.'"